Templates, Useful Tips for Getting Started

1. You’ll find your existing Word templates in the TEMPLATE sub-folder of the Durell data folder called Imw-Data.

2. You should create further sub-folders within the TEMPLATE one in order to organise your templates (e.g. sub-folders within the “TEMPLATE” one for “Accounts”, “Motor”, “Life”, “Commercial”).

3. To convert an existing Word document into a template you must change the file's suffix from .doc to .dot, for example from “letter.doc” to “letter.dot”. So start by copying examples of your most commonly used existing Word docs into these sub-folders and renaming them as dot files (e.g. rename “Fred’s Motor, Renewal.doc” as “Motor, Renewal.dot”).

4. Alternatively copy-&-paste existing templates, rename them and then edit them (e.g. copy & paste “Motor-Renewal.dot” to create a new version which you rename as “Houshold-Renewal.dot” and then edit it).

5. Always try to name your templates with the main type first, followed by the sub-types (e.g. "Household, Renewal, DD.dot" and "Household, Renewal, Cheque.dot").

6. To quickly edit the text or layout of an existing template go to the TEMPLATE folder, right-click the template and select “Open” (n.b. avoid the mistake of double-clicking it, or selecting “New”, where in both cases you'll start a new letter based on the template).

7. Also be warned: when saving new templates Microsoft will prompt you to save them in a folder called “Templates” (n.b. plural) which is the wrong location on Drive C (i.e. it's the default Microsoft single-user location). All Durell templates must be saved in the “\Imw-Data\TEMPLATE” folder.

8. Once you've got a basic template ready and want to edit it further, for example to add Durell data fields, select it in the Durell Document Viewer, making sure that...
• You CLEAR THE TICK at the bottom of the pop-up (otherwise you’ll start a new document based on it).
• The "Data field set" is set to "Standard", not “(New Field Set)” as shown below. Alternatively you may select another set if you specifically wish to use it (e.g. “Commercial”) though this is unlikely to be the case.
• You are starting from the correct point in Durell. For example if editing a client template then start from a client record. If editing a policy one then start from a policy, and if editing an accounting transaction then start from an invoice.

9. Before proceeding, activate the Durell Help and if possible select a section that tells you the applicable data field names (e.g. for premium and commission fields select the section called “General Insurance, All Policies, Data Fields for Premium Screen”, as shown below).

10. To add more data fields to the Data Field Set called "Standard" then on the “Link to Microsoft Word” screen click the "Setup" button to the right of the Data Set dropdown, which will bring up the pop-up shown below...

Use the “Select table” dropdown to pick the appropriate table (e.g. “Policy – Details 1” for basic policy and premium details). Then on the left click the field you wish to add to the data set followed by the “Right Arrow” button in the middle to pass it to the selected set.

11. Use the tick-box at the top of the pop-up shown above if you’d like to sequence the selected fields differently from their order in the Access data tables (n.b. and then use the “Move” buttons to re-order them).

12. A useful trick when looking for data fields in the “Select fields” window, shown above, is to repeatedly press the first letter of their name. For example in the screen shot above, if you keep pressing the letter “R” you’d jump to…
• Rebroked
• Renewal Invitation
• Renewal Invitation Amount
• etc

13. Once you have the correct fields in your data set, proceed to edit the selected template, making sure that you CLEAR THE TICK for normal documents, as shown below (and always leave the other tick box called “Include client policy details” clear too)…

14. Once in the template, depending on the version of Word that you’re using, the two key buttons are…
• The <<ABC>> one to switch between a display of the data field names and their current contents
• The “Insert Merge Field” button, to load the data fields. This button is easily confused with one that loads standard Word data fields for the date, etc.

15. When loading today’s date you are advised to copy-&-paste the one you’ll find in Durell’s template called “Letter” as this is a “Created date” version which will retain the date when each letter is generated. If you use Microsoft’s “Today’s date” instead you’ll find your template always displays the current date, even for letters that are two years old.

16. When re-saving a template from within Durell it must…
• Have a slightly different name from the one you are basing it on (e.g. if starting from “Renewal.dot” you’ll have to save it as something like “Renewal-1.dot”.
• Be a “Word Document Template” file type, not a “Word Document” one.
• Be saved in the S:\Imw-Data\Template folder, not the one called “Templates” (plural).